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Money well spent on Amp or Speakers

Hey Everyone,

This is my first post on Audiogon so please bare with me. I currently have a very simple stereo setup:
2 B&W xt8 speakers
1 B&W PV1 sub
1 Rotel RC-1550 Preamp
1 Rotel RB-1552 Amp

Everything was selected due to the slim design and that they fit snugly under/near my TV Cabinet. The room with the gear is rather small at roughly 350 sqft and it is mainly used for TV and light CD playback. I just feel that the current setup is missing a lot of mid-range and the disconnect can be audibly noticed in the gap in-between when the speakers seems to fade away and the sup kicks in. I would like to keep everything as simple as possible and wanted to get the communities feedback as to what component in the chain should/could be replaced for the best sonic improvement? I would only want to upgrade 1 component at this time and am leaning towards a tube based amp. Any thoughts/suggestions?
pndxprss99
mceljo
1,357 posts
 
I'm not familiar with Rotel products, but I'd suspect that they are a solid product. I would probably look to upgrade the speakers, but really think your problem may be more related to subwoofer integration than any specific component. I "cheat" and have a receiver with Audyssey built in that does a great job of calibration.

Your speakers are spec'd such that they should easily have enough range to blend with a subwoofer without leaving a "hole" in the sound. I wouldn't expect a new amp or pre-amp to correct this.

You could consider going to a receiver with Audyssey, but I don't know how much of a step down that might be from your seperates.

How much time have you spent integrating the subwoofer?
metralla
945 posts
 
selected due to the slim design and that they fit snugly under/near my TV Cabinet

Maybe you have taken the "fit snugly" idea too far and have your speakers tucked away. Make a test with them pulled way out into the room.

Regards,
elevick
2,638 posts
 
I agree with Metralla. Try moving the sub as well. Have you played with the crossover settings and volume on the sub? Try setting it lower, ie move from 80hz to 40. I would bet that your best results would be eliminating the sub, finding the best location for the speakers and then hooking the sub up to the second set of pre-outs if there are two sets of outputs. Then, slowly bring up the volume on the sub while running it full range. You won't have a gap at all and just have to avoid too much overlap.

A tube amp won't help your problem.
maineiac
649 posts
 
What is your goal? If you want to listen to 2 channel music then your thinking tubes is good but that doesn't exactly fit with your speakers. In the end you will likely end up having to replace everything but speakers first would be the way to go. Listen, listen, listen to a lot of different makes and models.
efner's avatar
efner
99 posts
 
I'd replace the Rotel amps with a used Manley Stingray.
If you don't poke it you can always resell it here and not lose much if any money.The stingray puts out 45 "tube" watts and sounds great.they can be had for about $1300.
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